Israeli forces kill dozens of Palestinians in Gaza strikes, battle Hamas in Rafah
Israeli strikes kill 38 Palestinians, health officials say
Israeli military battling Hamas in close combat in Rafah
Israel says Rafah operation is targeted and precise
Aid agency says many civilians still stuck in the city
Updates death toll, paragraph 1, Israeli military spokesman paragraphs 8-9, NRC paragraphs 11-12, senior Hamas security official killed paragraph 15
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO, May 23 (Reuters) -Israeli forces killed at least 38Palestinians in aerial and ground bombardments across the Gaza Strip on Thursday and battled in close combat with Hamas-led militants in areas of the southern city of Rafah, health officials and Hamas media said.
Israeli tanks advanced in Rafah's southeast, edged towards the city's western district of Yibna and continued to operate in three eastern suburbs, residents said.
"The occupation (Israeli forces) is trying to move further to the west, they are on the edge of Yibna, which is densely populated. They didn't invade it yet," one resident said, asking not to be named.
"We hear explosions and we see black smoke coming up from the areas where the army has invaded. It was another very difficult night," he told Reuters via a chat app.
Simultaneous Israeli assaults on the northern and southern edges of Gaza this month have caused a new exodus of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing their homes, and have cut off the main access routes for aid, raising the risk of famine.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza following a Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7 in which fighters killed 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages, by Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel's assault in Gaza has killed more than 35,000 people, with thousands more feared buried under the rubble, according to Gaza health authorities.
HOSTAGES IN RAFAH
Israel says it has no choice but to attack Rafah to root out the last battalions of Hamas fighters it believes are sheltering there.
"Hamas is in Rafah, Hamas has been holding our hostages in Rafah, which is why our forces are maneuvering in Rafah. We're doing this in a targeted and precise way," Israeli chief military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a statement on Thursday.
"We're protecting Gazan civilians in Rafah from being a layer of protection for Hamas, by encouraging them to temporarily evacuate to humanitarian areas... So far we have eliminated dozens of Hamas terrorists, exposed dozens of terror tunnels and destroyed vast amounts of infrastructure."
UNRWA, the main United Nations agency in Gaza, estimated as of Monday that more than 800,000 people had fled Rafah since Israel began targeting the city in early May, despite international pleas for restraint.
Suze van Meegan, the Norwegian Refugee Council's Emergency Response Leader in Gaza, said many civilians were still stuck.
"The city of Rafah is now comprised of three entirely different worlds: the east is an archetypal war zone, the middle is a ghost town, and the west is a congested mass of people living in deplorable conditions," she said in a statement.
In parallel, Israeli forces stepped up a ground offensive in Jabalia, where the military has razed several residential areas, and struck nearby Beit Hanoun town, areas where Israel declared major operations over months ago. Israel says it has had to return to prevent Hamas from regrouping there.
The Israeli military said in a statement forces began conducting targeted raids in Beit Hanoun "to eliminate terrorists, locate and strike terror infrastructure, below and above the ground."
A senior Hamas security official, Diaa Aldeen Al-Shurafa, was killed in an Israeli strike as he toured residential districts of Gaza City, the interior ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said.
The Israeli militarysaid three soldiers had been killed in the fighting on Wednesday, raising the number killed since Gaza incursions began on Oct. 20 to 286 soldiers.
Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi. Additional reporting by Dan Williams and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Editing by Ros Russell and Sharon Singleton
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